5,000 COVID-19 shots to be given to worker sector on Labor Day – Palace

FILE PHOTO:  5,000 COVID-19 shots for working-class people on Labor Day. REUTERS/Molly Darlington

MANILA, Philippines — Some 5,000 COVID-19 vaccine shots will be given to minimum wage workers and overseas Filipino workers under the A4 group of the government’s vaccination program priority on May 1, Labor Day, Malacañang said Tuesday.

This is after the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) approved the request of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to use the shots in a symbolic inoculation ceremony on May 1, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.

“The DOLE has been directed to create a masterlist to ensure the equitable representation of the labor sector during the said ceremony,” Roque, who also sits as the IATF spokesperson, said in a statement.

The task force also considered placing the frontliners of Congress to be under the priority A4 group “in recognition of their critical and dispensable role in our fight against the coronavirus pandemic,” he added.

Transportation workers, market vendors, religious leaders, OFWs, and members of the press are among those eligible to be vaccinated under the A4 group.

READ: LIST: Additional sectors eligible to get COVID-19 vaccine

The A4 cluster is next in line for COVID-19 vaccination after medical frontliners, senior citizens, and persons with comorbidities.

abc